Teachers sacrifice their Saturdays to host Saturday schools

Saturday school. Sounds depressing, doesn’t it?

For numerous reasons, including tardies, cuts and cell phone abuse, students are sometimes sentenced to spending four hours of their Saturday mornings at school, studying. Saturday school is mandatory for students who are assigned it; however, the teachers who watch over Saturday school volunteer to give up part of their weekend in return for a small stipend.

Saturday school goes from 8 a.m. to noon. The proctor makes sure all students have work to do and generally keeps order. There are anywhere from eight students to 30 in each session, depending on the week.

While students work on the homework they are required to bring, proctors brought work to occupy themselves.

“[Saturday school] was great for me because it always gave me the chance to catch up on lesson-planning or grading,” history teacher Jeff Scott said.

Scott supervised many Saturday schools last year, although he has not done so this year.

“Saturday school is not meant to be fun,” Scott said. “Many kids are issued Saturday school for attendance issues, so attending Saturday school should make you want to improve your attendance.”

According to Scott, however, this is not always the case because he often saw repeat offenders in Saturday school last year.

History teacher Kim Anzalone, who has supervised this year, also does not consider Saturday school a complete punishment.

“I would describe Saturday school as a study hall for four hours,” Anzalone said. “It allows students to focus on their work.”

Anzalone feels that Saturday school helps students work out their school-related issues, and students do not seem to resent their time at Saturday school too much either.

“Just last Saturday, at the end of the session, all of the 14 kids said ‘thank you’ for Saturday school,” Anzalone said. “It goes to show how polite, respectful and sweet our Saratoga kids are even when they get in trouble!”